NARTH Misinterprets the Science

A couple of years ago, the American Psychological Association convention was held here in Washington, and I attended. I heard a fascinating talk by a professor from the University of Utah named Lisa Diamond, who has followed a group of a hundred women, asking them each year to report their sexual orientation and some other things about themselves. These particular women tended to change their self-reported orientation every few years, sometimes they were straight, sometimes they were lesbians, sometimes bisexual or undecided.

I talked to her after her presentation, as reported on this blog HERE. (More on Dr. Diamond's research HERE.)

In that conversation, Dr. Diamond said that she is visited regularly by Mormon guys who ask her help, saying they "just can't be gay." But, she said, there is no scientific support for the idea that a person can change their sexual orientation -- her research subjects do not make a decision to change, it just happens, and they change both ways, from straight to gay as much as the other way. In general, these seem to be women who fall in love with someone regardless of the person's sex.

Well, as you can imagine, the "ex-gay" and anti-gay types would like to say there is scientific evidence to support their view that gay people can transform themselves into straight ones, and they have cited Dr. Diamond's research results as evidence for that.

She is not pleased.

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

A national group that advocates "treatment" of homosexuality is being criticized for allegedly distorting a Utah researcher's work to advance the theory that people choose their sexual orientation - a controversial notion rejected by mainstream psychology.

Lisa Diamond, a University of Utah psychologist whose sexual identity studies suggest a degree of "fluidity" in the sexual preferences of women, said in an interview Tuesday that the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, or NARTH, misrepresents her findings. Position papers, some penned by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, an adjunct professor in the U.'s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, point to Diamond's research as evidence that gays' sexual orientation can be straightened out through treatment - much to Diamond's dismay.

"If NARTH had read the study more carefully they would find that it is not supported by my data at all. I bent over backward to make it difficult for my work to be misused, and to no avail. When people are motivated to twist something for political purposes, they'll find a way to do it," Diamond says in a videotaped interview posted on the Internet. U. psychologist says sex research distorted

You can watch the video on Wayne Besen's site: HERE. Besen blogged about this interview a few weeks ago. The Tribune only had it yesterday, oddly waiting until after the elections where anti-gay ballot measures were being considered in several states.

Diamond made those remarks two weeks ago as Californians were debating Proposition 8, the divisive ballot measure that mandates marriage as solely between a man and a woman.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints encouraged members to give time and money to the successful campaign, triggering a cascade of criticism and protests.

Diamond's comments specifically targeted Encino, Calif., psychologist Joeseph Nicolosi, co-founder of NARTH and the author of "Healing Homosexuality," and "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality."

"You know exactly what you're doing," says Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies, in the videotape. "There's no chance this is a misunderstanding or simply a different scientific interpretation. ... It's illegitimate and it's irresponsible and you should stop doing it."

Nicolosi did not respond to an interview request and Byrd claimed he did not know why Diamond, a fellow U. faculty member, took umbrage with NARTH's citation of her work.

"NARTH's view is that people can adapt any way they want and there is freedom of choice," Byrd says. "If it says 'fluidity' it says 'fluidity.' How you interpret it is something else."

That is, of course, a completely inappropriate perspective for scientific literature. It's not like poetry, where the reader is invited to fantasize along with the words or to impose their own personal interpretation, these are peer-reviewed scientific journal publications.

These past few years we have seen a number of serious researchers complain that anti-gay and "ex-gay" ideologues are distorting and cherry-picking lines from scientific publications.

The cure for this, and the prevention for a repeat of the past eight abysmal years of American history, is, it seems to me, education. People need to learn to read critically, everyone should have a solid background in scientific methods, some statistical literacy would be a nice thing. Listen carefully when you hear them talk about education, about home-schooling and charter schools, and when they complain about our public schools. Some groups benefit when Americans are poorly educated.